Earlier this year, Odyssey Marine Exploration began an operation to recover tonnes of silver ingots which were on SS Gairsoppa when it sank after being torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1941 as the merchant ship sailed towards Galway, Ireland; Gairsoppa was located by Odyssey in late 2011.

In an update, Odyssey Marine Exploration says that it “will not comment on the status of operations or recovery of cargo until any additional silver recovered has been transported to the secure facility in the United Kingdom“. However, Odyssey does add that the Seabed Worker, which is being used in the recovery operation, will make a stop in Cork, Ireland on 15 August to take on fuel, supplies,and to make changes to personnel.

Odyssey Marine Exploration also state in a press release that preliminary results taken from a sample of 30 of the silver ingots showed that they do contain a high percentage of silver – between 91.66%-92.052% – and some gold, which Odyssey says will be recovered during the processing operation.

Commenting in a press release, Mark Gordon, Odyssey President and COO, said:

“We have elected to make our regularly scheduled crew change port call in Ireland on this trip as the port of Cork is much closer to the Gairsoppa shipwreck site than the UK port we will use for offloading cargo. Scheduling this port call here gives us an additional two, or more, working days on the site during the best weather period of the year.”

“Also, there is already more than a 10 week accumulation of silver in the smelting and monetization process from the first load of silver delivered during the last port call.”